Seven Days
by PepperjackCandy
Summary: Clark gives Lex some bad news about their relationship. Can Lex make things right? Will he??


Title: Seven Days  
Author: PepperjackCandy  
Rating: PG-13  
Pairing: Clark/Lex   
Category: Futurefic  
Spoilers for: None  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing Smallville-related, or related in any other way to Clark Kent, Superman or any of the various creations of the wonderful folks at DC Comics.   
  
Feedback: Always welcome, either by e-mail or using the review system at fanfiction.net.   
  
A/N: This is inspired by Sting's song "Seven Days" (http://www.sting.com/discography/lyrics/ly7days.html).   
  
My muse was finally forced to get off her ass and write this by zahra's wonderful "Six Days," which was also based on a song. So? Who's next? And more importantly, which song? Barenaked Ladies' "One Week"? The Beatles' "Eight Days a Week"? Dirty Vegas' "Days Go By"?  
  
And as a warning, despite TW's green eyes, this is another "Clark has blue eyes" story. Most of mine are.  
  
=======  
  
MONDAY  
  
Clark sat across from Lex practically vibrating with nerves.  
  
"You might want to look into decaf, Clark." Lex said with a smile.  
  
Clark smiled wanly back.  
  
"What did you want to talk to me about?"  
  
"Um, well, . . ."  
  
Lex wished Clark would just spit it out.  
  
"Lana's pregnant."  
  
Lex felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. Unable to catch his breath, he asked, "What? I mean, how?"   
Lex fought down a blush as he continued stammering, "I know *how,* but when did you have the time?"   
  
Clark's eyes widened. "Oh. No. I'm not the father. I . . . think I can't have children. You see, the last time Whitney came home, well . . . and by the time she knew about it he'd been killed, and now the baby needs a father, so I'm going to propose to her."  
  
The quiet tension in Lex's voice showed Clark just how upset he was. "Just like that? Without saying anything to me about it?"  
  
"I think I am saying something to you, Lex."  
  
"Interesting definition."  
  
"Look. You're always telling me to go for what I want, and I am."  
  
"You could have saved us all a lot of trouble if you just went for her back in high school." He snapped.  
  
"I don't want her," Clark said a little more forcefully than he intended.   
  
"Then why the hell are you going to propose?"  
  
"Because of what I do want. A family. Stability. Permanence."  
  
"More than you have with me?"  
  
Clark looked him steadily in the eye. "Yes."  
  
"I'm not sure what to say."  
  
"Then there isn't anything to say, is there?" Clark stood. "Except, I guess, that I hope you'll be my best man."  
  
And with that, Lex knew that their affair was over.  
  
TUESDAY  
  
A million times through the day, Lex got one click away from sending chatty e-mails to   
Clark. And a million times, he said _no_ when Outlook asked if he wanted to save a draft.  
  
His head could remember that Clark had left him for Lana, but his heart? That was another matter.  
  
WEDNESDAY  
  
Lex started plotting to get Clark back. He wondered how much it would cost to get Lana to look elsewhere for a father for her baby.  
  
Then he began to wonder if he could *find* her another father for her baby.  
  
He began flipping through his Rolodex. _Amhurst, Archer . . . ._  
  
Half an hour later, he'd assembled a stack of three cards of men who owed him favors.  
  
_Let's see, who'd be a suitable replacement for Clark?   
  
Dick? He's got the heroic tendencies thing down pat. His financial prospects are better than Clark's. But he's a bit of a chauvinist, as well. No contest._  
  
He placed the card to one side.  
  
_Ted. Heroic. Financial prospects. A perfect gentleman. But he's a bit of a nebbish. More than a bit, actually. No style whatsoever._ He sighed. _No._  
  
He placed this card on top of Dick's.  
  
_Lar. Handsome. Stylish. Gentlemanly. Financial prospects, eh, so-so. Heroic. A nice guy. Of course, he's in suspended animation at the moment, because he's allergic to lead, but I'm sure we can find a workaround for that._  
  
Lar's card began a new pile, which Lex mentally dubbed the _Maybe_ stack.  
  
He looked down at the two pathetic piles of cards and changed the _Maybe_ stack to the _Yes_ stack. He picked up Lar's card and dialed LuthorCorp LE.  
  
The automated assistant answered. As he punched his way through the options he needed, he thought, _Lar and Clark are enough alike to be brothers. This will be perfect._  
  
He slammed his head down on the desk once, hard. _What am I doing? 'he's in suspended animation at the moment, because he's allergic to lead, but I'm sure we can find a workaround for that'. Jesus. I'm not Lana's biggest fan, but even she doesn't deserve an unconscious second-rate knockoff when she bargained for the original._  
  
"Resuscitation services. How may I help you?"  
  
"Sorry. I have the wrong number."  
  
THURSDAY  
  
Lex called in sick and decided to conduct a controlled experiment to determine exactly what the proportion of scotch to tearjerker movies it'd take to get past 21 years of defenses and actually let him cry.  
  
Halfway through his second bottle, and three-quarters of the way through John Hannah's recitation of Auden's _Stop All the Clocks_, it worked. Lex felt the first tears form.  
  
And thirty seconds later he was unconscious.  
  
FRIDAY  
  
Lex was awakened by the shrill ringing of the phone.  
  
Normally, he could ignore it, but at that moment it felt like the noise was sawing the top of his head off.  
  
Using the excruciating sound to guide it, his hand wandered around until it had hold of the phone. By some miracle, both hand and phone made it to his ear.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Lex?"  
  
"Clark? What time is it?" Lex realized that his head was wedged in between the arm and back of the sofa.  
  
"7:30. Is this a bad time?"  
  
"No. It's good." Lex lifted his head and immediately regretted it as pain shot from one temple straight across to the other. He dropped his head back down and stuffed it between the arm and the back of the sofa again.  
  
"I tried to call you last night, but I couldn't get through."  
  
"I was out." Lex couldn't help smiling at the small joke.  
  
"Well, I just wanted to tell you that we've set the date for the wedding."  
  
At the word 'wedding,' Lex's heart plummeted, and he remembered why he'd drunk himself into a stupor the previous day.  
  
Oblivious, Clark continued, "It'll be tomorrow at noon in the Old Lowell County Courthouse. We're gathering at 11:30. Is that good for you?"  
  
"Yeah. Great." Lex responded without enthusiasm.  
  
"Thanks, Lex. You're the greatest. Bye."  
  
"Bye." Lex said after he'd hung up. His arm dropped listlessly to his side.  
  
It rang again.  
  
He pressed the 'talk' button and lifted it to his ear. "Yes, Clark?"  
  
"I guess you've spoken with my son today," Jonathan's voice came across the line. "Have you had any success talking him out of this wedding?"  
  
Lex had difficulty wrapping his brain around this development. "Talking him out of . . . ."  
  
"Don't try to convince me that you're in favor of this. You and my son have been too close for me to believe that. For the last five years or so?"  
  
"How did you . . . I mean, Clark said that he . . . ."  
  
"Come on, Lex. Why did Clark take Lana, who had a steady boyfriend out of town, to his senior prom? Why not a real date? Because he wasn't comfortable bringing the date he wanted to bring. You."  
  
"And you've known all this time?"  
  
"Well," Lex could hear the reluctance in the other man's voice. "You've proven time and again that your heart really lies with Clark's best interest. He's blossomed in these last five years."  
  
"Thank you, sir."  
  
"And that's why you're letting this go through. You've gotten some idea that this . . . marriage," he snorted the word, "is the right thing for Clark.   
  
"Do you know what he's doing? He's moving back to Smallville and is trying to convince me to assign our mortgages to him."  
  
Lex felt the blood drain out of his lips as he responded numbly. "He what?"  
  
"Lana has decided that she doesn't want to raise the baby anywhere but here. So Clark is moving back home."  
  
"But what can I do about it? I swear, if I knew what to do, I'd do it."  
  
"Let go of your damn Luthor pride and give the boy what he needs."  
  
"What does he . . ."  
  
He heard Martha Kent's voice in the background, "Jonathan? Who are you on the phone with?"  
  
Then came Jonathan's mumbled response. "Just a wrong number, dear."  
  
And with that, a click, and then silence.  
  
"Dammit!" Lex swore as he hung up. "What does Clark need?!?" He shouted fruitlessly up at the ceiling of his office from his position on the sofa.  
  
In time, he got himself together and headed off to work. He'd tried to call Jonathan back several times, but the first time he got Martha, who seemed surprised to hear from him and told him that Jonathan had gone into town, but that she would give him the message. The other times there was no answer.  
  
Once he was at the office, he shuffled through reports, made changes to proposals sent up by mergers and acquisitions, checked his company e-mail repeatedly, all the while hearing Clark's and Jonathan's voices in the back of his head.  
  
First was Clark, " I'm going to propose to her. Because of what I do want. A family. Stability. Permanence."  
  
And Jonathan. "Let go of your damn Luthor pride and give the boy what he needs."  
He got a phone call from a subsidiary in Japan, who were complaining that one of their products was evidently giving a whole new meaning to the 'giant' in 'Kishinoue's giant skink.'  
He put his head in his hands. "How big are they getting?"  
  
"We found one that's 50 centimeters."  
  
"And that's . . ."  
  
"150 percent of their normal size."  
  
"Well, then. Pack one up and ship it to R&D, then get someone cracking on finding out when this all started."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Anything else?"  
  
"No, sir."  
  
Lex hung up. The voices had changed, though. This time, he heard:   
  
_Give the boy what he needs. A family. Stability. Permanence._  
  
"Shit!" He stood up and left the room. It had been so obvious. Why hadn't he seen it? Because, he answered his own rhetorical question sardonically, Clark was intentionally being vague. He didn't want to have to *ask* you to commit to him.  
  
As he stepped out into the hallway, he addressed his secretary. "I'm going to take the rest of the day off. And possibly next week, too. If someone's bleeding or on fire, or if someone calls to say that those skinks are getting any bigger, patch them through to my cell. Otherwise, feed them to voice mail."  
  
"Very well, sir. Um, next week? What will you be doing next week?"  
  
Lex gave her the first smile he'd felt on his face since Monday. "Hopefully, I'll be on my honeymoon."  
  
Leaving a perplexed secretary behind him, he headed for the elevators.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, he was in his favorite jewelry shop. It hadn't taken but a moment to find a setting he'd liked, but then came the difficult part. Finding a carat and a half diamond to go in the setting.  
  
Lex sat at the table with the jeweler, Jerry, for two hours, sorting through diamonds. Finally, he lifted his head. "No. Not any of these. Do you have any others?"  
  
"But Mr. Luthor, we're almost ready to close."  
  
"I need. this ring. tonight."  
  
Jerry's boss, Brian, leapt into the breach. "You go on home, Jerry. I'll stay here with Mr. Luthor."  
  
Jerry flashed him a grateful look and stood.  
  
After Jerry had left for the night, Lex said, "How far do you think he'll go in this business?"  
  
"Jerry? He actually was our most driven salesperson until last year. He got married, and he has to get home to the wife. There'll be plenty of time for him to regain that killer instinct once his family has been established."  
  
"You seem very relaxed about that."  
  
"My wife left me ten years ago. I was spending too much time at work, and I didn't even see it coming. It's killed me to watch my three children grow up on weekends only. If I can keep Jerry from having to face that . . . "  
  
Sort of like how Lex never saw Clark leaving him for Lana coming. "Oh."   
  
Then, as if he'd never made the admission, Brian continued, "These are all of the emerald-cut carat and a half diamonds in our store. We have an affiliate in Los Angeles that may have something you'd like, and they'll be open another two hours. Would you like me to call them?"  
  
"Yes, please."  
  
The jeweler left to make the call and returned several minutes later. "They'll fax over the certificate from all of their carat and a half emerald-cut diamonds."  
  
Lex checked his voice mail while they waited.   
  
Finally, the fax machine rang. As the jeweler began handing faxed sheets to him, Lex skimmed them.   
  
"No. No. No. Maybe . . . no. No. No."  
  
Finally, Lex dropped the stack of papers. "Why is this so difficult?" He asked rhetorically. "Seems that one of these diamonds would speak to me. I'd have an easier time convincing the Smithsonian to sell me the Hope Diamond and having *that* cut down to size." He paused. "There's a thought. . . ."  
  
"You want us to buy you the Hope Diamond?" Brian asked, horrified.  
  
"No. Find me a blue diamond that fits the setting."  
  
Brian's jaw dropped. "A blue diamond?"  
  
"Yes. The recipient of this ring has blue eyes just the color of the Hope Diamond. A blue diamond would be perfect."  
  
"Very well. You *do* know that this will be expensive."  
  
Lex grinned. "I'm made of money, and anyway, the commission on it should take care of the college tuition for at least one of your children. Provided you don't have your heart set on Bennington."  
  
Brian smiled widely. "Whatever you need, Mr. Luthor."  
  
SATURDAY  
  
"Dearly beloved," the judge intoned solemnly.   
  
During the pause before _we are gathered here,_ the sound of the door closing quietly could be heard filling the silence.  
  
Lex cleared his throat. "Excuse me."  
  
Clark spun around. "Lex!"  
  
Wordlessly, Lex walked to the front of the room, never taking his eyes from Clark's. "I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to figure it out, Clark. But I hope you won't leave me hanging as long." He dropped to one knee at Clark's feet and pulled the ring box from his pocket. "Will you have me back?"  
  
Clark didn't even glance at the ring that Lex proffered. "Lex." He repeated, more quietly. "Of course I will."  
  
Belatedly, Clark realized that he'd just accepted a proposal while standing at the altar at his own wedding. He glanced up at Lana, whose eyes were filled with tears.  
  
"Go on." Lana whispered, smiling. "If Whitney could come back, I'd leave you at the altar for him in a heartbeat."  
  
Clark raised his eyebrows in surprise, but then looked down into Lex's eyes as Lex slipped the ring onto Clark's wedding ring finger.  
  
Clark glanced down at the ring, surprised as he noticed that the stone was blue. But then Lex stood and once again, all Clark could see was Lex.  
  
As they walked together out of the room, Clark could have sworn he saw his father wink at Lex.  
  
SUNDAY  
  
Clark woke up to the much-missed feeling of Lex there in the bed beside him. "Don't you have to get to work?"  
  
"It's Sunday, Clark."  
  
"Yeah. Well, that never stopped you before."  
  
"I've had an epiphany. From now on, family, and that means you, are my priority." Lex kissed him.  
  
Clark looked down at his ring. "Is this a sapphire?"  
  
"Bite your tongue. *That* is a blue diamond."  
  
Clark swallowed -- hard. "It's what?"  
  
"A blue diamond. I couldn't resist. It matches your eyes."  
  
"Lex! That's terribly expensive, isn't it?"  
  
"And?" Lex asked like he didn't understand Clark's point.  
  
"And . . . and how can I possibly pay you back?"  
  
"Why would you want to? Would you expect me to pay you back for my ring once we get it?"  
  
"Well. Pay back might be the wrong way to put it. I mean, I'm not worth that."  
  
Lex pounced on him with a speed that startled Clark. "Yes you are. And don't you *ever* let me hear you say differently."  
  
Clark kissed him, answering in a falsely-meek tone. "Yes, dear." 


End file.
